Actor Phillip Seymor Hoffman Found Dead of Apparent Heroin Overdose

Hoffman was found dead with a hypodermic needle still in his arm.

Ace has a good point about the debate over drug legalization. Basically, his point is that the choices are a binary set of two choices:

1. Drugs are bad, and therefore must be illegal; or,
2. Drugs are fine, and therefore should be legal, and it's ok to do drugs.

Ace notes that you don't really see a more (dare I say) "nuanced" argument for: Drugs can be legal, yet they're pretty dangerous, so maybe you shouldn't do them.

As usual, Ace is right.

In all of the argument for legalization of marijuana in Colorado, we aren't really seeing anyone say that maybe it's ok to have legalized pot, but maybe we shouldn't be such big cheerleaders for it without the counterbalancing argument of "Maybe we shouldn't smoke pot all the time".

As events like Hoffman's death remind us, drug use has some negative consequences. Yes, this was heroin, not pot, but still, with all this marijuana legalization talk, I'm not hearing about any negative consequences. That's not good.

Remember the line Bill Clinton had about abortion? He said it should be "Safe, legal, and rare"which is a kind of third way of approaching the abortion issue. It's not the cheerleading stance of "Yay abortion", and it's not the prohibitionist stance of "never". He took the path of let's keep it legal, but let's discourage it culturally and socially.

I think that's the right path for some drug legalization. The problem is that we aren't seeing anyone of the legalization side of the argument call for restraint, or rarity in drug use.

Advocating for Marijuana Isn't the Same as Being a Stoner

I'll preface this post by saying that I'm not an advocate for marijuana legalization. I'm also not looking to give people hard time for it, either. I guess I'm kind of agnostic. It's a drug. It doesn't have positive effects, but neither does this glass of bourbon that I'm having right now.

Anyway, the (Interim) Columbia Chief of Police has a Facebook page. I'm not sure why, but whatever. That's not the point. Apparently, someone came on his page and engaged the chief of police.

The threat came in response to a Facebook comment by Brandon Whitmer, who was unimpressed by Santiago's announcement of a local pot bust. "Maybe u should arrest the people shooting people in 5 points [a Columbia neighborhood] instead of worrying about a stoner that's not bothering anyone," Whitmer said. "It'll be legal here one day anyway." To which Santiago replied:

@Brandon whitmer, we have arrested all the violent offenders in Five points. Thank you for sharing your views and giving us reasonable suspicion to believe you might be a criminal, we will work on finding you. 

That post quickly disappeared, creating the impression that the author had thought better of threatening critics of the drug war with arrest. Not so! Santiago later posted this:

This is Interim Chief Santiago posting. I was just notified that one of my staff members deleted my post. I put everyone on notice that if you advocate for the use of illegal substances in the City of Columbia then it's reasonable to believe that you MIGHT also be involved in that particular activity[. T]hreat? Why would someone feel threaten[ed] if you are not doing anything wrong? Apply the same concept to gang activity or gang members. You can have gang tattoos and advocate that life style, but that only makes me suspicious of them, I can't do anything until they commit a crime. So feel free to express yourself, and I will continue to express myself and what we stand for. I am always open to hearing how our citizens feel like we can be effective in fighting crime.

My only point in posting this is that advocating for something isn't "reasonable suspicion" that you're committing a crime. It may be identifying yourself as sympathetic, but it isn't a crime to advocate for anything. Maybe I decide to be in favor of legalizing marijuana. That doesn't mean squat as far as "reasonable suspicion".

The Interim City of Columbia Chief of Police needs to calm down. There's plenty of work for him to do, but the whole You don't have anything to fear if you haven't done anything wrong is a little too Germany in the 1930's for me.

USC Research Professor Galls Me

Some professor at USC (Prakash Nagarkatti) says that the sequester is going to hurt USC's funding for basic research, and that's going to hurt the local economy because of...well he's a little fuzzy on that.

Here's what he says:

In 2012, USC received a record $238 million in external research funding, more than 60 percent from federal sources. Every $1 of research funding generates an estimated $2.21 in local economic growth, making the impact of USC research more than half a billion dollars.

First of all, we're not even talking about losing a half billion dollars of money from the economy even if you assume for the sake of argument that the multiplier effect of this money is correct as Keynesian economic theory would have you believe. Let's assume that his economic assumption is totally right. I'm not going to address economic theory and the multiplier effect today.

Let's just talk about this guy's little research program.  (By the way, this guy ain't an economics professor.) I'm not a scientist, but it looks like he's into research smoking pot as it relates to cancer. If someone can decipher what the heck he's actually researching, let me know. But I digress.

Ok, so last year alone, USC got $238,000,000.00 in funding for research. I don't care who you are, that's a lot of money. Ok, so 60% of that came from federal sources, which is $142,800,000.00. With me so far?

Ok, so now the big, scary sequester is here. For those of you who don't remember, the sequester is cutting 2.23% from the federal budget. So 2.23% of $142,800,000.00 is $3,184,440.00.

To recap, in 2012 USC received $238 Million dollars. For that year alone. For just research. Now, USC faces the possibility that it's only going to receive $234.8 Million in 2013? We're talking about a little over $3 million dollar cut. That's not that big of a difference.

However, this professor says that  "sequestration could cost USC up to $12 million in competitive federal grants." Ok, fine. Even using his numbers, that means USC research has to subsist on $226 Million each year.We're talking about a 1.74% funding decrease here, pal. You can still buy a lot of pot and Cheetos for $226 Million.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/03/2704915/nagarkatti-sequestration-will.html#storylink=cpy

Oh nooes! Only $226 million (each year) to research and study things! What will become of us?

Here's the part that really galls me:

While we understand the difficult budget situation our country faces, and recognize that shared sacrifice is the only path to recovery, our research universities are significant contributors of growth and prosperity.

Shared sacrifice? This professor is saying that USC and Columbia are going to really suffer if the extra $12 Million of Uncle Sugar's money don't come to his little research programs. What part is he sacrificing? He can't even sacrifice a little bit of his research program in our shared sacrifice. And he's not just talking to his pals about this over coffee. He's running an op-ed in The State to try and convince everyone that he can't do without his precious little 1.74% of a funding cut, and saying that we need to engage in "shared sacrifice" so he can keep researching stuff with no decrease in funding.

Maybe he should get some people to research the word "shared".

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/03/2704915/nagarkatti-sequestration-will.html#storylink=cpy

Cry me a river.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/03/2704915/nagarkatti-sequestration-will.html#storylink=cpy

How Republicans Can Be Cool

Is this possible? The drinking age is an interesting idea. I think that returning drug policy to the state level would be a better idea.

Your BCS Football Team as Drug

Once again, the brain-trust over at EDSBS reveal their true genius by figuring out what drug every major college football team would be. I highly recommend giving the whole thing a read. It covers the main conferences. Here are South Carolina, Clemson, and a few of my other favorites:

SOUTH CAROLINA: Gas-huffing. Hard to explain the appeal to non-devotees. Headaches, vomiting, delusions. Users are loyal beyond all reason.

Sammy Watkins Arrested for Weed

I'm shocked that #2 smokes weed!